Mumbai: Market regulator Sebi on Wednesday said it has established a local office at Bengaluru in Karnataka, a move that will help it look after regulatory operations and functions concerning the investors.

As per a notification issued by the market regulator, the local office at Bengaluru has been set up under administrative control of Sebi's Southern Regional Office at Chennai.

The new local office would look after the regulatory aspects of investor protection, investor education and other functions of Sebi across Karnataka.

Last week, Sebi had established its office in Jaipur to reach out to its investors in smaller cities of Rajasthan.

At a meeting held in March, 2012, Sebi's board had approved opening of new local offices in Chandigarh, Indore, Bangalore, Kochi, Patna, Bhubaneshwar and Jaipur.

In July last year, Sebi board had also decided to open a new Western Regional Office at Mumbai and three local offices at Hyderabad, Guwahati and Lucknow.

Earlier last year, Sebi's board had discussed scope of strengthening its regional offices and had initiated a series of internal discussions to explore the possibility of decentralisation of work to regional offices and opening of offices at new places.

Subsequently, Sebi had decided that it should take its services to the door step of investors to promote a balanced, pan India securities market, as physical proximity of the regulator's office to investors and intermediaries would promote deepening and broadening of the securities market.